In some computing implementations, a software package or application may be designed to reside and operate on a corresponding hardware component; for example, software may be programmed into a hardware card in order to provide functionality for that card. It is desirable that the operation of such a software application be tested on the hardware component before the combination is placed into actual use. Previously, such testing was problematic for various reasons. In many cases, the target hardware component did not provide any interface for a human user to interact with the software application to be tested; accordingly, it was difficult to monitor, observe, or control testing as the testing progressed. Furthermore, although some systems were previously developed to test the operation of a software application resident on a hardware component, these prior systems were inadequate in many ways. For example, in the prior systems, an entire series of tests had to be run each time that any aspect of a software application's operation was required to be tested. Because a user could not selectively test particular aspects of operation, the time and operation of both the user and the testing system were undesirably consumed. In addition, these prior systems did not provide any information to a user as testing progressed, but rather only output information at the end of testing.